Category: Be fully present

Not postponing life any more

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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The finality of death is meant to challenge us to decision, the decision to be fully present here now, and so begin eternal life. For eternity rightly understood is not the perpetuation of time, on and on, but rather the overcoming of time by the now that does not pass away. But we are always looking for opportunities to postpone the decision. So if you say: “Oh, after this I will have another life and another life,” you might never live, but keep dragging along half dead because you never face death.

Don Juan says to Carlos Castaneda, “That is why you are so moody and not fully alive, because you forget you are to die; you live as if you were going to live forever.” What remembrance of death is meant to do, as I understand it, is to help us make that decision.

David Steindl-Rast, Learning to Die

 

Entering with gentleness

Karl Duffy1 Comment

healing stones

If there is a single definition of healing it is to enter with mercy an awareness of those pains, mental and physical,

from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay. 


Stephen Levine

 

Not this nor that

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Vallee de Valserine 2

Some teachers say that God is pure being.  
But he is as high above being as the highest angel is above a gnat.  
I would be speaking as incorrectly in calling God a being as if I called the sun pale or black.

God is neither this or that.

Meister Eckhart, 1260 – 1328, Dominican Theologian and Preacher,

With enlightenment there is no liking and disliking: Such dualities come from ignorant inference. They are like dreams or flowers in the air. Gain and loss, right and wrong: such thoughts must finally be abolished at once. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from everything that holds you back. When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached.…To come directly into harmony with this reality,  just simply say when any doubts arise, “There are not two.” In this “not two” nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth.

Seng T’san,  6th Century, Third Chinese Zen patriarch.

Once again, thanks to Ellen van Kalmthout for the beautiful photo

Trust

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Instructions on how to live
We already know how to let go –  we do it every night when we go to sleep, and that letting go, like a good night’s sleep, is delicious. 
 
Opening in this way, we can live in the reality of our wholeness. 
A little letting go brings us a little peace, a greater letting go brings us a greater peace.
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Entering the gateless gate, we begin to treasure the moments of wholeness. 
We begin to trust the natural rhythm of the world, just as we trust our own sleep and how our own breath breathes itself.
jack Kornfield

More about non-forcing

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Statue representing the portrait of Buddha in meditation. Copy space.

Another reflection on the value of not forcing (wu-wei)  in our lives, and the benefits that come from trusting and letting go:

The ten directions converging,

Each learning to do nothing

This is where we learn the Buddha’s training;

Mind’s empty, all’s finished.

P’ang Yun, 740 – 808

 

 

Single focus

Karl Duffy6 Comments

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There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment.

A man’s whole life is a succession of moment after moment.

If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and
nothing else to pursue.

Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Samurai, 1659 – 1719,  Hagakure 

photo of our cat Barney doing his meditation practice.